Archive for 2013

Soaring temperatures in July saw CUNY’s colleges respond to a record eight peak load day events this summer. In the energy business, “load” is the amount of energy a building is using at any given time. During the year, the amount of energy needed, or the “energy demand”, fluctuates depending on weather conditions or the […]

The CUNY SustainableWorks Cleantech Scholars Program has been designed to give CUNY students majoring in STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math) disciplines the opportunity for a “Real World” supplement to their education. ( more) The program, currently supported by Con Edison scholarships, partners students with CUNY faculty and Industry partners working on inventive cleantech projects […]

Using green power helps reduce the environmental impacts of electricity use and supports the development of new renewable generation capacity nationwide. The Environmental Protection Agencies ‘Green Power Partnership’ works with a wide variety of leading organizations and a growing number of colleges and universities to help advance green power and recognize the leaders by sector. […]

In May, Queens College secured $580,000 from New York City’s Department of Environmental Protection for the construction of an additional rain garden on campus, through the DEP’s Green Infrastructure Grant program. The rain garden, to be built in the college’s Dining Hall Plaza, will replace 18,000sqft of impervious surface with trees, planting beds and permeable […]

Hunter College is a partner with the Mayor’s Office as part of NYC’s Cool Roofs initiative. This project helps mitigate the “heat island effect” in New York City and decreases unwanted heat load inside the buildings that create the cool roofs, helping to decrease the amount of air conditioning needed to cool these buildings on […]

Dave Schwittek, a College Laboratory Technician in the Art Department at Lehman College, is the winner of the Sustainable CUNY Video Contest. The contest was designed to raise awareness around simple behavioral changes that can have a tremendous impact on energy usage and energy savings. Schwittek was awarded the first place prize by University Director […]

(June 4, 2013) At the 7th annual NYC Solar Summit the City University of New York (CUNY) convened New York’s power leaders to discuss market growth strategies and the role solar can play in emergencies, grid resiliency and demand response. In 2012, the NYC solar market grew by 85% over the previous year and is projected to […]

There were 14 MW of solar actively generating power on City rooftops at the close of 2012, an increase from 8.5 megawatts just a year earlier. There were only a handful of solar installation companies doing business in NYC and barely a megawatt of solar in 2007 when the City University of New York (CUNY) […]

Currently, Con Edison has no way to track the amount of solar energy being produced in any given hour on its grid. A smarter, cleaner and more resilient electric grid requires integrating intelligent data monitoring with distributed energy generation systems like solar and emergency generators. Many of the existing PV systems have some variation of […]

Behavioral changes can sometimes be the most difficulty to achieve in the short run, but once new habits are adopted by the current generation they can become status quo. In order to raise awareness on behavioral changes that can have a tremendous impact on energy savings Sustainable CUNY is sponsoring a video contest that is […]